Cold war at SMC satellite shows signs of thawing
BUNDY CAMPUS — Regional officials continue to meet in the hopes that Santa Monica College’s Bundy campus will become more accessible to students in a manner that minimizes traffic burdens for residents.
Following a Monday night meeting in Mar Vista, representatives from City Hall, SMC and West Los Angeles said they are developing a tri-party agreement which would likely enable the college to have full access to its new 10.4-acre campus at 3171 S. Bundy Dr. In return, SMC would be required to make its Bundy campus as insular as possible to prevent traffic to and from its main campus at 1900 Pico Blvd.
However, officials also cautioned key terms of the agreement have yet to be finalized. While they are optimistic a solution is in sight, issues still need ironing out.
“What Santa Monica and (West L.A.) residents have requested is that the college not use the Bundy campus as a shuttle site,” said Tom Donner, SMC’s interim president. “The college has agreed to not use it as a shuttle site.
“The Bundy campus will be a self-contained program and provide enough parking for instruction at the site.”
Meanwhile, the Airport lot, which Bundy campus students have used for parking this semester, will no longer be available on Nov. 1, when construction begins on the new Airport Park. As a result, SMC still needs a permanent shuttle lot for students to its main campus, even as obstacles remain before the college has full access to its new satellite campus.
The site has a 100,000-square-foot, four-story building housing classrooms intended for nursing, teaching and community education courses. In addition, Bundy has a 30,000-square foot, two-story building the college is not using, and a surface parking lot capable of holding 609 cars, which SMC officials said will meet the needs of expected campus operations.
However, vehicular access to Bundy is currently limited to college staff and the disabled. The satellite campus is buttressed against the city of Los Angeles to the east, with a small road that permits turning in and out of the site from Bundy Drive. The Bundy campus is also fronted by Los Angeles to the south and east — on the corner of which is Stewart Avenue, a north-south neighborhood street the college has agreed not to use for campus access, except in the case of emergencies.
Bundy is buttressed against the city of Santa Monica to the north, lined with commercial buildings City Hall leases, which separate the Bundy campus from Airport Avenue, a two-lane east-west road that leads to 23rd Street.
City Hall this summer prevented vehicular access onto the Bundy site from Santa Monica entry and exit points, in response to neighborhood complaints related to the college’s expansion plans. City officials have said that restriction will be indefinite unless other agreements are made.
Meanwhile, college officials contend their plans for Bundy have been scaled back to accommodate neighborhood concerns. College officials want vehicular access to the Bundy campus, at entry and exit points located within Santa Monica and West LA. to accommodate its students.
The agreement calls for City Hall to allow vehicular traffic to flow from Airport Avenue to and from the campus.
As part of the deal, Gordon Anderson, Santa Monica’s assistant city manager, said it’s important West L.A. be willing to create a third, limited traffic signal on Bundy Drive that would connect it to a small access road on the south side of Bundy to further mitigate vehicle flows.
“Without that signal we feel uncomfortable moving forward with the other mitigation elements of the tri-party agreement,” Anderson said.
Anderson said City Hall would also like traffic exiting from the north side of Bundy onto Airport Avenue to be required to make a right turn only — towards Bundy Drive — in order to reduce traffic flows located within residential neighborhoods between Bundy and SMC’s main campus.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles 11th District Councilman Bill Rosendahl, whose constituents live in Mar Vista and other parts of West L.A., said they are opposed to an additional traffic signal on Bundy Drive, fearful it will make the congestion worse. At the same time, Rosendahl wants City Hall to allow traffic to travel west on Airport Avenue to mitigate more congestion anticipated on Bundy Drive from the campus.
However, Rosendahl said he’s glad the three entities are in discussions and is optimistic a solution all parties can agree on is possible.
“I’m convinced that reasonable people can work it out and that we can reach a compromise,” Rosendahl said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 22, 2005. Read the original PDF.